The advantages of nestable and stackable carriers for bottles and other containers are recognized in the prior art over other carrier types including collapsible or foldable bottle carriers which lack durability and are difficult to clean.
The objective of this invention is to improve on the construction of high density plastic bottle carriers or cases of the non-collapsible type. More particularly, the invention seeks to provide a case of increased strength and durability for the popular two liter drink bottle, preferably in the form of an eight bottle case but not limited to this capacity.
A further objective of the invention is to reduce the amount of material in the case without structurally weakening it and in so doing to improve the cleanability of the case.
Another objective is to provide a bottle case of the class mentioned which can be stacked while filled with bottles stably in two modes, namely, aligned stacking and cross-stacking, and when empty can be nested with other empty cases to conserve space and without the difficulty of the nested cases becoming wedged together so that they are difficult to separate. In the above manner, the utility and the versatility of the bottle case is enhanced over the known prior art.
Another and more specific object of the invention is to provide in a bottle case of the type mentioned coacting guide struts for nesting the cases which also form rigidly engaged support columns for stacked cases when alternate cases to be stacked are rotated 180 degrees from their respective nesting positions. A further feature of the invention resides in the use of integral struts on the long side walls of each case as structural stiffening means for the case and also as internal locator or positioning means for bottles within the case, without the necessity for the case to include traditional right angular crossing bottle cell walls or partitions.
These and other advantages of the invention will readily appear to those skilled in the art during the course of the following description.